Revolution’s next Rise of the Rest road trip is heading to 4 states in April

Dupont Circle-based investment firm Revolution has set its next Rise of the Rest road trip with plans to hit four states in late April.

Launched in 2014, the five-day road trip is designed to shine a light on startup and tech communities outside of major hubs such as San Francisco and New York. This will be the ninth edition of the Rise of the Rest road trip.

Here’s a look at the full schedule:

• April 20: Wichita, Kansas
• April 21: Tulsa, Oklahoma
• April 22: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• April 23: Northwest Arkansas
• April 24: St. Louis, Missouri

Rise of the Rest first stopped in St. Louis back in 2014, on its second tour, where it met advertising platform company Lockerdome — now a Rise of the Rest Seed Fund portfolio company. This latest edition of the bus tour will focus on how the cities listed above are attracting talent and how large corporations are working with the local startup communities.

“The tour is a remarkable lens through which to view the past, present, and future trajectory of a city and its business community,” said Anna Mason, a partner on the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, in a statement. “We view the trip as an opportunity to learn what is helping and hindering founders in cities between the coasts and help shine a brighter spotlight on how each city is helping to make their community a true home for startups.”

The announcement of this tour comes after Revolution closed a second $150 million Rise of the Rest Seed Fund last October and released its review of 2019 investments this week.

David Hall, an investor and partner with Revolution, was recently appointed as managing partner of the seed funds. Mason, who leads the bus tour, will be joined by Hall, who has also traveled on the tour’s eight previous trips.

Each day of the tour will be filled with the Revolution team meeting with local entrepreneurs and business leaders, fireside chats and a startup pitch competition to close out the day’s work. Based on the pitches, the Revolution team will decide which startup will receive a $100,000 investment from Rise of the Rest at each stop, totaling $500,000 in investments for the ninth edition of the trip.

Specifically in St. Louis, the tour will focus on agtech innovations and how the region is leading in this sector. The pitch competition hosted there will feature presentations from agtech startups vying to secure one of the investments from the the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.

Revolution Chairman and CEO Steve Case even has some professional ties to Wichita, where he worked as head of new pizza development at Pizza Hut early in his career.

“These regions have deep legacies of storied entrepreneurial successes,” Case said. “Through the tour, we want to help catalyze additional momentum to help the next generation of entrepreneurs in places like Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri.”

Since its inception, the Rise of the Rest road trip has visited 43 cities, Revolution reported.